Stargazing

One of my many hobbies (too many, probably) is very-amateur astronomy. I can find the moon (ha ha), the occasional planet like Venus, and a few constellations - namely, the Dippers and Orion. Until last year, I was taking a free course at Barnes & Noble's online University. That course is when I "found" the constellation Leo, which was hosting Jupiter at the time. Unfortunately, BNU changed their format and dropped the astronomy classes. :( I was getting my star fix from Night Sky Magazine, but that will no longer happen either.

To fill in the gap, I just registered with a website called The New Radiant that should be fun and educational. A lot of the people from the BNU classes migrated there, as well as Ken Hewitt-White, who taught the classes and wrote for Night Sky Magazine (which just closed up shop, breaking my heart).

I also look at the SkyTonight weekly updates from Sky & Telescope every day, to see if there's anything going on that I'll be able to see. Currently, there's a nova that's visible to the naked eye, in Scorpius early before dawn. Haven't seen that yet, but I did get a lovely look at a crescent moon and Venus last night. We don't have a good view of the horizon, so I couldn't see Mercury below the moon, but maybe someday. Tonight, I'll try to get a photo of Venus. And, when (if) I get the new camera, I'll try taking more sky photos. With the long exposure feature, I might come up with something neat.